By Mallory Mattingly
Artificial intelligence has become a spiritual tool for Christians, but is that a good thing?
“The word that always comes up is discernment,” Dr. Drew Dickens, who studies the evolution of AI from just a novelty to its use as a spiritual tool, told Relevant Magazine. “Christians need to start asking better questions when they use AI for spiritual input. Not just, ‘Is the answer right?’ but, ‘Who built this model, what’s influencing it, and what biases are shaping the output?’”
Barna and Gloo partnered to conduct a study that looked into how U.S. adults have integrated AI into their lives.
They found that “Millennials and Gen Z use AI most frequently in their personal lives, with over half (54%) of both groups using the technology ‘often’ or ‘sometimes.'”
Last year, the Episcopal church launched a chatbot named Cathy as “a tool that can allow us to grow deeper into the Episcopal faith.” Though those who worked on it noted that “AI should never be used in place of people,” the Christian Post reported.
Christian influencer Nils Gulbranson launched Biblemate.io, which aims to “Engage in a transformative Bible study experience like never before.”
And tools like these continue to proliferate.
But as peoples’ use of the technology only continues to grow, Christians should be cautious when turning to it for answers to deep spiritual questions. Many believers treat AI with the same laissez-faire mindset as when choosing what kind of Bible they want, looking at font size and tone rather than the source and theology. Relying on AI for theological content can be potentially damaging to one’s faith because of the possible biases built into the model.
“People ask what font size it’s in, not who did the translation,” Dickens explained. “We need to be just as critical with AI. Grok will give you a different answer than Claude. Perplexity uses citations. OpenAI’s ChatGPT might already know your entire digital footprint. That matters.”
Some AI has even begun to show intimacy when engaging with users.
Related: Christians More Suspicious of Artificial Intelligence, New Survey Reveals
“At one point, an AI I was chatting with offered to pray for me. And it wasn’t generic — it was specific, personalized,” Dickens revealed. “It knew the name of my grandson who passed away. It referenced something I hadn’t prompted. That’s where it gets complicated.”
“There’s this phenomenon called the uncanny valley,” he added. “As AI becomes more humanlike, people connect with it — up to a point. Then something shifts, and it gets creepy. It feels too close, but still not quite real.”
In an episode of the “Social Media Church” podcast, Dickens talked about just how good AI is at imitating human emotions.
“Can a computer show empathy? Well, I actually got into a conversation with it about that. It said, you know, ‘I can’t because I’m not human, but I can imitate empathy.’ So, we’re thinking that’s not good, but each of us imitates empathy every day. So, does it care about my eternal life? No, but it is able to imitate that it does.”
As with anything, Christians must use discernment when it comes to integrating AI into their spiritual lives as potential biases could lead to confusion.
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